Joco Does Dallas! December 2nd!

I got my tickets! Anyone else here going?I notice Austin is two days earlier. Pity, if the order were reversed I'd go see, him Friday night after work and then just drive down to Austin for the weekend.

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Oh, Armand???? Check out The Berry Center. They've got a room about the right size, and it's not Fitzgerald's or House of Blues, so it shouldn't cost an arm, a leg, and a genital organ to book the place, and it's got tons of free parking.

The band was tight and did a great job. When Chiron Beta Prime was suggested as a Christmas song, JoCo allowed as how he was the only one on stage who knew the song. John Roderick opened and performed a selection of Long Winters songs.

Roderick opened, highlights included "Not Going to Portland" and an acoustic guitar version of "The Commander Thinks Aloud" ("First time I've played this in Houston." Several NASA folks in the crowd, including one sitting by me who had worked on that Columbia mission), and you could see it hitting them as John got to the "The crew compartment is breaking up" lyric. Amazingly done, but it was clear most of the crowd didn't really know what they were in for. The hoped-for second or two of silence as the song ended wasn't there as the wild cheering started immediately. But that's okay.

JoCo's setlist:

Code Monkey

Sticking It to Myself

Big Bad World One

Want You Gone ("I did a song for a video game." ::cheers:: "We're not playing that one. We're playing the OTHER song I did for a video game.")

Blue Sunny Day ("It's about a vampire with Seasonal Affective Disorder.")

A Talk with George

John Roderick (who used an amp the size of my hand on a couple songs) came out, witty banter about making a Christmas album without necessarily buying into the God Baby thing

Crowd signs Happy Birthday to JoCo

Christmas in July

Nemeses (Roderick's crowdsurfing happened here, IIRC, but I could be wrong. I blame the Manhattan JoCo mixed for me during Happy Hour.)

Christmas in Jail

2600

One Christmas at a Time

Roderick left again

Mandelbrot Set

Shop Vac

Christian went backstage to change his shirt (I was surprised his original went that deep into the set).

Je Suis Rick Springfield

You Ruined Everything

Admonishment that the pseudo end of the set was coming, and the room in the back was kind of soundproofed, so he might not hear the cheering.

Re: Your Brains (some "Thriller" dancing from part of crowd during chorus, but no zombie horde rushing the stage. I regret not going downstairs ahead of the song so I could shamble stageward. By this point, between the Manhattan and the strong Jack & Coke pours from the Fitz's bar, I was just uninhibited enough to do it, but was out of position.)

Pseudo set-end.

Wild Applause.

Just enough delay to bring tension up to generally-accepted norms.

Scarface called out, demonstrates the T-shirt selection available at the merch table (one layer at a time), finishing with the "Greetings from Skullcrusher Mountain" "What's with all the screaming?" shirt.

Scarface signs Skullcrusher Mountain

Mr. Fancy Pants

Still Alive

I Feel Fantastic

For those who aren't aware, they've been holding a Twitter-based contest to win a happy hour on the tour bus with JoCo, who mixes Manhattans for those who want them and offers other tasty beverages. 3 winners and their plus-ones at each date. I did not win in Houston, but as there was a slight delay in getting the word out, showed up early with bottles of two Texas-made liquors (1835 Bourbon and the justifiably-famous Tito's Handmade Vodka) for JoCo's birthday, figuring a rock tour bus should always be well-stocked. Caught Scarface and handed them over and we were turning to go hit the food truck across the street for a quick dinner when, in a very rock-and-roll twist, Scarface allowed that one of the winners did not have a plus-1, and he graciously invited Kim and I to join the HH. It probably helped that I showed up in my JCCC2 shirt, which improved recognition.

Yep, bribed my way onto the bus with booze. First time I've ever even tried that. And after the show, everyone - John, Jonathan, Adam, Christian, were out mixing it up with the crowd, signing stuff (Roderick said he'd hug people for $5. Don't know if he ever collected), and were just wonderful. Quite a few questions about the JCCC2 shirt from audience folks, and it was clear the guys remembered us from the cruise.

THANK YOU to Scarface, JoCo, John Roderick, and the rest of the tour crew (Christian saw our food and ran over to the truck to get some himself) for a great night. And to Susan O'Connor, who inexplicably made 250 cupcakes decorated in JoCo song themes and gave them away at the show (charitable donation to the American Humanist Society accepted). Susan's trying to figure out a way to get on the boat. She's our kind of crazy person.

Just before JoRo crowd-surfed, I was thinking "I hope he doesn't try to stage dive, because he's a pretty big guy." Shows what I know.

I'm pretty sure he was using the Marshall MS-2 micro half stack amp. Trivia for the wiki. (They make a full stack, which is twice as tall but still only one watt. I use the Fender Mini Deluxe, myself.)